{"id":3236,"date":"2024-01-26T11:03:13","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T11:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wansait.com\/tranzit\/?p=3236"},"modified":"2024-01-26T11:03:13","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T11:03:13","slug":"what-if-chinas-population-shrink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wansait.com\/tranzit\/blog\/what-if-chinas-population-shrink\/","title":{"rendered":"What if China’s population shrink?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

China\u2019s population shrinks again and could more than halve \u2013 here\u2019s what that\u00a0means<\/h1>\n\n\nXiujian Peng<\/a>, Victoria University<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

China\u2019s population has shrunk for the second year in a row. <\/p>\n\n

The National Bureau of Statistics reports just 9.02 million births in 2023 \u2013 only half as many as in 2017. Set alongside China\u2019s 11.1 million deaths in 2023, up 500,000 on 2022, it means China\u2019s population shrank 2.08 million<\/a> in 2023 after falling 850,000 in 2022. That\u2019s a loss of about 3 million in two years.<\/p>\n\n

The two consecutive declines are the first since the great famine<\/a> of 1959-1961, and the trend is accelerating. <\/p>\n\n

Updated low-scenario projections from a research team at Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, one of the first<\/a> to predict the 2022 turndown, have China\u2019s population shrinking from its present 1.4 billion to just 525 million by 2100.<\/p>\n\n

China\u2019s working-age population is projected to fall to just 210 million by 2100 \u2013 a mere one-fifth of its peak in 2014. <\/p>\n\n

Deaths climbing as births falling<\/h2>\n\n

The death rate is climbing as an inevitable result of the population ageing, and also an upsurge of COVID in the first few months of 2023.<\/p>\n\n

The population is ageing mainly because the birth rate is falling.<\/p>\n\n

China\u2019s total fertility rate, the average number of births per woman, was fairly flat at about 1.66 between 1991 and 2017 under China\u2019s one-child policy. But it then fell to 1.28 in 2020, to 1.08 in 2022 and is now around 1, which is way below the level of 2.1 generally thought necessary to sustain a population. <\/p>\n\n

By way of comparison, Australia and the United States have fertility rates of 1.6<\/a>. In 2023 South Korea has the world\u2019s lowest rate, 0.72<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

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